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Tag Archives: Newtown Connecticut

I’ve had a difficult time really gearing up today to scour the tech industry landscape for a perspective to share or anything interesting to write about. Newtown is too top of mind. Too sad. Too awful. I’ve been reading a lot of perspective on the tragedy, and here are some thoughts.

Of all the opinion I’ve read, I thought Buzz Bissinger‘s piece in the Daily Beast was the most stark, the one that I’m going to save and keep nearby. It’s classic Bissinger: pulling no punches, Bissinger isn’t for someone who wants a pat on the head and told there will be a silver lining. No, he takes the culture to the woodshed in the article that he condlues: His concludes the piece, titled, “Sorry But Don’t Expect Any CHange After Newtown,” this way:

We cannot let go of the violence. And as long as we cannot, these tragedies will continue, seemingly inexplicable—but not really, given our history. There is an answer. We could ban handguns as the United Kingdom did after a mass murder at a school in 1997. We could weigh the societal priorities of gun ownership, and psychotic killers getting access to semiautomatic rifles with the most potent ammunition available, versus not ever allowing an innocent child to die again for the sin of going to school and getting ready for the holidays.

But we won’t… Guns in this country still pump people up.People still like the concept of taking the law into their own hands because the law is a toothless pussy, the giddy thrill of an intruder coming into their house, assuming he is an intruder because he may not be, and blowing his head off with the bonus extra of brain-matter spattering on the wall.

I fear that he could be right, and that would be too bad.

There have been other, more productive, threads of thought that I’ve been following. Raising more awareness on the issues of mental health in children and young people. Discussing gun control and the need to do more, much more, here.

And these are both vitally important discussions. I will watch and listen to these debates closely and try to be useful in whatever way I can. And I will keep Bissinger’s piece nearby hopefully as a prod to lean forward to try and push more and demand more of our government and all of us, to not let our violent past dull us into the continuing sameness of accepting the unacceptable.